Nicotine
by Madame Rhea Di'Ey
Summary: With him, the feeling of routine isn't quite as boring. [short oneshot. GrimmHime. light angst. rated T for implications.]


**{Nicotine**}

_[_by Madame Rhea Di'Ey_]_

_..._

"_But when I'm alone on the longest nights  
I think of you, and your Marlboro lights,  
And I, I get a bit better._"

– Natalia Kills, Marlboro Lights

* * *

She rubs her eyelids tiredly, sluggishly, with the heel of her palms; stifling a yawn, her lips clamp together, shut. The carmine lipstick she had boldly clad them with in the morning was long gone, eaten as she drank coffee after coffee like some drink water just to get through another day of work. Reporting in at six-thirty sharp and spending twelve long hours from seven to seven dissecting cadavers could get tiresome regardless of who you were; the job of a coroner, however, was a doctor's job and thus someone had to do it, as nasty as it could get when you had to cut open corpses to pay the bills.

Orihime Inoue thus moves her pen rapidly over the last report of the day, scribbling her signature in an indescribable, but beautiful cursive font. She stands, stretches, and grunts as her spine pops. Rubbing absent-minded at her lower back, she struts out of the small office, shutting off the light and shrugging on her coat before locking. The morgue's halls are sinister and quiet, bathed in violet neon light. Still, she wouldn't trade her job for any other – she is perfectly content with cutting up dead people for a living. The corpses are still and indulgent patients; silent and understanding as she rattles on in whispers, conversing politely with them as she inspects and analyzes their soulless shells with her scalpel. They never respond, and that's perfectly fine with the ginger woman; she was always afraid of answers, always afraid of their character.

She opens her umbrella, stepping out of the two-story building and balancing the handle in the crook of her neck so her hands are free. She closes the double doors and locks the entrance. Twice.

Her Mary Jane heels click softly against the dark gray cement, muffled by the sound of falling rain. She hums, a sound low in her throat, as she walks through the inner court of the hospital she is employed at. She passes by the small park and the church contained within it, and trudges at a leisure pace toward the parking lot. Stepping inside the open space, she finds and she climbs into her red Volkswagen Passat, throwing her shoulder bag and wet umbrella onto the passenger seat and swiftly starting the engine. She leaves the grounds of her workplace, bidding with a nod goodnight to the guards on the night shift when they open the gates for her to pass.

She hates the routine.

Orihime walks into the confines of her lonely apartment, sighing; long locks of orange hair like burning amber sway as she shrugs out of the day's outfit when she climbs into the shower. Twenty minutes and a lot of hot water later, she turns off the shower head when there is insistent ringing on her doorbell. The busty, petite female wraps a fluffy tower around herself and shuffles with clumsy quickness to answer the call.

She opens the door and without as much as a greeting, a man reeking of danger waltzes in. His chiseled features are stuck in a frowning grimace and he agitatedly runs a hand through his mane of blue hair. There's a cigarette half-smoked dangling from his chapped lips and had it been anyone else, Orihime would have given them hell for spreading nicotine flavor in her living room. As it is, she simply stands there, watching him pace and jolt around her living quarters, amusement causing a smile to appear at the corners of her lips. It quickly dies, however. She knows what he's here for.

…

In the morning, she wakes up to the scent of nicotine and woodsmoke combed with musk. There's a muscled arm wrapped around her waist possessively and her nose is buried in the crook of a warm neck. She smiles, and inhales deeply, drinking in his essence. Grimmjow grunts, feeling her shift, and holds on tighter. Behind their closed curtains, there's a world wide awake. A world where they cannot be together.

Orihime reaches for his pack of cigarettes and the black lighter next to the red Pall Mall cardboard container. Lighting one, she allows herself to take a drag, eyes slipping closed as she shifts to lie on her back. The cigarette is passed between them, an odd sort of _good morning_ greeting. They shower together and she makes scrambled eggs with a _shitton_ of bacon for breakfast, all the while enjoying the warmth of his arms.

Good thing they aren't in that world outside the hyacinth velvet curtains that guard her window like priests guard sacred relics.

…

_Three years from now, she will open his corpse up and perform the autopsy like a professional. Then, she'll go home and smoke all of the cigars contained within the pack he had left behind on his last visit; she'll eat omelet and Chinese takeout for dinner and down three bottles of Jack Daniel's without a break. And then she'll put a hole in her skull with the gun he gifted her with for self-defense, ferrying her own soul to hell just because life makes no damn sense without him.  
_

_But then again, these are just details._

* * *

**Author's Note**: Something written very quickly after listening to Marlboro Lights by Natalia Kills. Don't ask me why I didn't put this under **_Moments_**. I just considered it didn't fit in, okay.


End file.
